I've been searching high and low for a really good scale for quite a long time. My vintage one is in pounds and ounces and as with most lovely vintage things, it is more good looks--robin's egg blue and very Martha Stewart-- than accuracy.
Besides, in the words of that famous philosopher of my generation, Madonna, we are living in a metric world where just about every country, except ours has been using the metric system for a gazillion years-- so I must become, finally, a metric girl.
But if you, like me, were born in the US, you already know we never quite hit it off with the metric system and now us foodies are paying for it. Just pick up any European culinary magazine or cookery book that asks for a ml of this or a gram of that and you wish you had learned those metric units in grade school.
Keeping an equivalency chart nearby (mine is one of those magnetized ones that stick to the fridge), scribbling my books to death with the exchanges and having to use an assortment of metric measuring bowls and cups every time with so much cleanup afterwards had become too tiresome.
Add to that an ever expanding library of European cooking books by some of my favorite French and British chefs/celebrities (Hermé, Ducasse, Slater, Ferber and Lawson) and I just had to simplify the preparation as best I could.
Not to mention the fact that with all the foodie blog events happening lately, especially the baking ones, less is more and precision is of essence (at least when it comes to baking and jam making).
During my latest weekly visit--a ritual of sorts-- to Williams Sonoma (Pacific Place) I finally found my ideal scale: the Salter Aquatronic Digital Scale. I purchased the 11 pound scale. All I had to do was open the box, remove the lithium battery's plastic strip protector and presto.
It is ultra easy to use, digital, cleanup is a snap and I can use any bowl and measure all my ingredients--dry or liquid-- with just that one bowl. Genius!
Now I am really ready for Food & Thoughts Zarah Maria's Sugar High Fridays #3: Spice Up Your Winter! on Friday , December 10th!!! If you are in the market for a new kitchen scale I highly recommend this one.
"This electronic scale allows you to weigh baking ingredients in just one bowl. The key to its efficiency is a unique weight-sensing system that can be used to weigh both solid and liquid ingredients. Featuring an easy-to-read digital display, the scale may be zeroed out to account for the container's weight and as you add different ingredients. The 5-lb. scale (7 1/2" x 7" x 1" high) measures in 1/8-oz. increments; the 11-lb. scale (8 3/4" x 7" x 1 1/2" high) measures in 1/4-oz. and .25-fl.-oz. increments. Both scales also give metric equivalents. For convenient cleanup, the scale's removable stainless-steel cover is dishwasher safe."
